memory_alphafandomcom-20200223-history
Forum:We are not your whores
Memory Alpha, both the project and the community, are under attack. Wikia is requiring you all to now explicitly allow them to make a profit, in complete violation of the letter and intent of the copyright you released your contributions under, on our content. They have illegally been doing this from the beginning, but apparently they think since they bought the domain years ago without the knowledge or consent of the community, a domain we aren't even "allowed" to have anymore by the way, that they can dictate terms and arbitrary do whatever they want. Their "Terms of Use" implicitly did this years ago, but since neither sulfur nor I even knew about it when they mentioned it to us in passing when we were at their offices, it was clear we couldn't have surrendered our rights, and apparently they finally have a lawyer smart enough to know that that wikia's terms of use don't superseded Memory Alpha's original terms of use or the copyright. Surrendering these rights means we will have betrayed everything this project is suppose to be. If we were going to do that, MA would have been Star Trek.com for the past 6 years, and we would be far better off than we are now. If wikia can't host MA without us surrendering our rights, then they can not host Memory Alpha. That has been made clear time and again over the years, and I for one, and Cid as well if his posts are to be believed, explicitly do not wave the commercial clause. I am prepared, if not as much as I would like to be, to take this entire site offline before allowing the content here to become another whore making money for wikia. DMCA notices can be filed by next week, and they god damn will be this time. Wikia got its month back in December, they will not get another. Sulfur, you better decide now if you want to be the member of this community that works with the host, whoever that may be, or take your thirty pieces of silver and work for this host, because right now I'm having a hard time seeing the difference, and the day has come that you can't be both. I suggest everyone request a database download now, and we start looking for another host, because it's looking like there is no version of this where the site as it is can remain at a .wikia.com address. - 04:07, July 17, 2015 (UTC) :Here's Wikia's Commercial Use Waver that they claim modifies the CC-BY-NC license: ::If you contribute to, or have contributed to, a wikia that uses a license that restricts the commercial use of your contribution (e.g., the CC-BY-NC license or the CC-BY-NC-ND license), you hereby waive such restriction with respect to Wikia’s use of such contribution and any derivative works of such contribution. :Memory Alpha cannot abide by that clause; it essentially negates the NC portion of the license under which *everyone* who has contributed to MA since the beginning has been operating. -- Renegade54 (talk) 15:05, July 17, 2015 (UTC) :::In other Wikia-Star Trek Communities has a big discussion started. They agree in several points your idea with a new domain, but the risk is too high. But we are many, too many for Wikia. They don't want to lose us, we have more power as they think. Take a final compromise to them and if they not agree, go with all your saved data and leave them alone. The other Memory Alpha's where follow you and in the end, Wikia will see, what they have done. :::No one mess around with Star Trek Fans! -- 16:55, July 17, 2015 (UTC) ::::Hi everyone. I think there is a misunderstanding here. This is obviously an issue that has a lot of passion behind it, so I'm not surprised to see such a strongly-worded thread here. So, I want to make a few things clear: ::::*'Our relationship with Memory Alpha has not changed.' The Commercial Use Waiver, as it applies to Memory Alpha, only covers advertisements. We have no intention of directly using the content for profit-generating reasons. The Commercial Use Waiver just codifies the fact that we advertise here. This is what we told you nearly two years ago. ::::*'You have not surrendered any rights.' Memory Alpha has had ads on it since it came to Wikia, and you have always been contributing here with the understanding that there are ads. ::::*'The Commercial Use Waiver is written in vague terms because MA is not the only NC community on Wikia.' We have other NC communities, generally for business reasons involving official partnerships. The vagueness of the Commercial Use Waiver covers all cases, including situations off of Memory Alpha where we do use content in other ways. Per my first point, though, this does not change our relationship with Memory Alpha. ::::*'The recent legal changes on MA were to ensure the site was in line with Wikia Licensing.' Nothing about the changes alters our relationship with Memory Alpha in any way. We made the changes because the copyright pages, in some cases, gave incorrect or incomplete information. The footer, in particular, must link to Wikia Licensing. ::::If you would like language added to your copyright and legal pages that makes it clear that this is simply for advertisement purposes, we can have that discussion with you to consider that possibility. We can get input on that from our General Counsel on Monday. But in the meantime, I cannot stress this enough: our relationship with Memory Alpha has not changed, and, for the purposes of Memory Alpha, the Commercial Use Waiver only applies to advertisements on Memory Alpha. ::::Given that, I have reverted the reverts you made to the legal pages, Archduk. We can discuss the possibility of more specific Memory Alpha language to your pages next week. ::::Please let me know if you have any questions about this. I am happy to discuss this with you further. Thanks. - [[User:Brandon Rhea|'Brandon Rhea']](talk) 02:30, July 18, 2015 (UTC) Wikia has no say on the copyright here, and that has not changed, even though you are clearly trying to make a change here, and the fucking lies aren't doing you any favors either: "These Terms of Use, together with the Privacy Policy, Licensing Terms, Community Creation Policy and Wikia Community Guidelines, as referenced herein constitute the whole agreement between you and Company regarding the use of the Service, and completely replace any prior agreements between you and Company relating to your use of the Service." Your words are meaningless in the only way that matters, and the fact you think the way things were is acceptable to us just proves how much wikia doesn't give a shit about the user base. You are going to lose significant portions, if not all of this site, and there is no avoiding that if you keep pushing here. You can either pay through the nose to try and keep us, or save yourselves yet another PR nightmare and a bunch of money and time by working with us on options where you still get your completely unearned money and we can still leave, with our content, just like that fucking liar Jimmy Wales said we could back in 2007. - 07:18, July 18, 2015 (UTC) ::::This is the second time you have called us liars over this. We have explained to you multiple times that we are not using the content here for profit, and that has not changed. The only thing we use the Commercial Use Waiver on Memory Alpha for is advertisements, and you have always contributed to Memory Alpha with the understanding that there are ads here. Additionally, if you continue to revert the changes to the copyright pages, you will lose your admin rights. I recommend that we all take a deep breath, and we can discuss next week the possibility of adding more specific language to the Memory Alpha pages to call out the fact that this is simply for advertisement purposes. - [[User:Brandon Rhea|'Brandon Rhea']](talk) 14:06, July 18, 2015 (UTC) First of all, learn how to indent correctly, and we're well into double, if not triple, digits on me calling wikia employes liars. I'll stop when if ever your company can learn how not to have you say one thing and then do the other. Second, feel free to open your books and prove that the 90s porn site level of ads on every page here, which I know for a fact stop people from using this site, including ads in the content space, despite us telling you not to do that over and over again, only break even, or close enough, with what it takes to keep MA, and only MA, online. Anything else is making a profit on content you legally can't do that with, which is the whole fucking point here. Everyone here knows there isn't an accountant skilled enough to make the numbers lie that much, but feel free to offer something other than the wind that I'm wrong. Also, feel free to have a lawyer go on the record stating that unequivocally there is no difference between implicit agreement with the CUW in the TOU and the explicit agreement with the CUW directly on MA. In fact have them explain the whole reasoning for changing language that has been "perfectly fine" for over a decade. If you can get a lawyer to foolishly create grounds for their disbarment, go ahead, because lawyers aren't allowed to lie to this extent about legal matters without repercussions. Then again, there are about to be monetary repercussions for wikia as well, so maybe you should quite before it starts costing more money than it's already going to. Finally, we can address you threatening me. I'm not an admin here because wikia made me one, the community did. You can further prove wikia doesn't give a shit about the community by stripping me of rights the community gave me, for trying to protect that very community, from you no less, or you can stop acting like we're fucking whores and actually be willing to engage in a discussion that doesn't start with you already getting your way. We're well into double digits with telling you that having that discussion before making changes is the only acceptable, respectful thing to do, so stop trying to pretend your the victim here. There are still ways this can be resolved as amicably as statistically possible at this point, or you can keep acting like this is a community where less than 48 hours notice that you are unilaterally stripping us of our domain with no less than three active admins not available for comment is somehow a thing we should be fucking grateful for. - 20:39, July 18, 2015 (UTC) ::::It is unfortunate that it has come to this point. Because you continued to remove the lawyer-approved language, despite my warnings, I have removed your admin rights on Memory Alpha. If this continues in any way, you will be banned. Beyond that, I am happy to get you a comment from our General Counsel on Monday. - [[User:Brandon Rhea|'Brandon Rhea']](talk) 21:00, July 18, 2015 (UTC) :::::You have no right, whosoever, to remove admin status. As Archduk3 quite rightly stated, users are promoted to admin status by the community, NOT wikia... dumbass!! Revert, revert, revert, rather than continue to employ bullying tactics that compels the users of this wiki to detest you! --Defiant (talk) 21:31, July 18, 2015 (UTC) ::::::Just chipping as another community member in to echo the above comment. Archduk3 has every reason to be pissed with wikia: you've been unilaterally forcing things incompatible with this project upon us for years now, and often in shady ways at that. I absolutely support his drawing a line in the sand here. And on a sidenote, Archduk3 is pretty essential, I personally think his removal of admin status will be a huge blow to the smooth running of this community. -- Capricorn (talk) 21:50, July 18, 2015 (UTC) ::::Archduk lost his privilege to be an administrator here when he chose to make a kamikaze run at Wikia over policies that have been in place for years, an advertisement system that has been in operation for as long as he has been contributing here, and an advertising exception (via the Commercial Use Waiver) that he has been told about multiple times. Every edit you and everyone else makes here means you agree to the Terms of Use and Wikia Licensing, including the Commercial Use Waiver. We are not using the Commercial Use Waiver on Memory Alpha for any purpose other than advertising, regardless of what Archduk and others may want you to believe. We have been consistently clear about this. At this point, we can't help it if Archduk or anyone else chooses not to accept reality. - [[User:Brandon Rhea|'Brandon Rhea']](talk) 23:07, July 18, 2015 (UTC) :::::Well, that was OT! Please reinstate Archduk's admin status here, as you had no right at all to remove it. --Defiant (talk) 07:24, July 19, 2015 (UTC) ::::::For the record, I too am totally against what you have just done, Brandon. Archduk3 was elected as an admin by this project's community and if the community decide he shouldn't be an admin we have a procedure for that. You are totally out of order. Reinstate his adminship now or risk proving Archduk3 right by your dictatorial behaviour. --| TrekFan Open a channel 17:12, July 19, 2015 (UTC) They've already proven me right TrekFan, they did it long before this, but people sometimes need to be reminded that monsters can act friendly and nice when they're getting their way, but will always revert to their true nature when they find themselves in a corner. The funny thing is wikia has put itself there, since they continue to underestimate us in practically every way. For the record though, sulfur can reinstate my sysop powers at any time, but he hasn't decided if he's jumping ship yet. I don't blame him either, he has interests on wikia outside of MA. I don't though, which is why I have no problem putting it all on the line. For the Germans keeping an eye on this, yes, I do have a plan for MA not "hosted" by wikia, and sorry I've been busy in RL to the point where I haven't had the time to translate this for you guys. We should talk somewhere wikia can't hear, and I would like to think there are at least a few people here who might be willing to listen to that as well, since the only other option is allowing this modern day slave operation do whatever they want with our content, even though they promise not to. After all, this isn't the first time they've said they're "willing" to add additional language to clarify what they shouldn't do, but they'll never actually add anything that diminishes their "power", since adding their "lawyer-approved language" here is, and always has been, about taking power from us. It wasn't a lawyer with our interests and goals in mind that crafted that language, it was one working for wikia, and wikia is only interested in money, which means the NC part of the license has to go. Just because they aren't selling the content today doesn't mean they won't tomorrow, especially since that is what this allows them to do. Since I've been here, the times wikia has actually come through with something that was just for us, and not indirectly for them, can be counted on one finger, specifically the middle one, which just so happens to be my message for them today. Tomorrow though, we'll see what wikia has to say once someone with a high enough pay grade gets involved, because while it may seem that they have all the power right now, we still have the numbers to hit them right where it will really hurt, in the wallet, and that's where the true power lies. - 00:32, July 20, 2015 (UTC) ::::::Yeah, the fact that there might be complications for Sulfur's work on other wikia sites if he decided to join this particular member of the "family" in packing our stuff and go somewhere else is really all you need to know about how wikia does things.... Glad to hear you're working on a concrete way out, Archduk3 -- Capricorn (talk) 00:56, July 20, 2015 (UTC) :::::::Although I am no regular contributor to this Wikia whatsoever, I must say that I am against an administrator's rights being removed for this. He speaks up, you remove them? Preposterous. He earned those rights, and you should re-add them whatever it make take >_> --.:*☆ 17:52, July 20, 2015 (UTC) ::::::::I have no opinion at this time on the issues raised by Archduk3 but I also disagree with the unilateral way this has been handled and feel his admin rights should be restored. Any issues with Archduk3's conduct should have been brought to the community and a case made, as would be with any other person who would have an issue with his conduct or views. From my standpoint of not having any opinion on these issues, taking such action would seem to not build understanding of anyone's position. 31dot (talk) 18:35, July 20, 2015 (UTC) :::::::::Yeah, I don't get the reason for this non-debate either. Wikia policy hasn't changed, but you're acting like it has? that makes no sense to me.--Marhawkman (talk) 21:54, July 20, 2015 (UTC) ::::Hi all. Per my comments on Friday, I spoke to our General Counsel today regarding adding more explicit text into Memory Alpha:Copyrights to drive home the point that the Commercial Use Waiver, as it applies to Memory Alpha, is only for advertisements and nothing else. Our proposed text is as follows: :::::"Memory Alpha is intended for personal and non-profit use only. Content posted on Memory Alpha is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial license. As Memory Alpha is a community on Wikia, content is also covered by the terms and conditions of the Wikia Licensing policy, including the Commercial Use Waiver (see: "Wikias Using the CC-BY-NC License" in the aforementioned policy). For the purposes of Memory Alpha, the Commercial Use Waiver only applies to advertisements, and no other purpose." ::::This would move the last sentence of the first paragraph into the first sentence of a new second paragraph. It would also eliminate the current third paragraph and the fourth dangling sentence. ::::Hopefully this will alleviate concerns regarding what our intentions are with Memory Alpha. I do have to be clear, though, that the changes we made to the links (pointing people to Wikia Licensing instead of the MA copyrights page) will need to remain in place. The reason for this is because they are a necessary part of making sure all of Wikia complies with the the Creative Commons licenses and the Wikia Licensing policy. ::::What you can do, if you would like, is add the Memory Alpha:Copyrights link after the Wikia Licensing link on the MediaWiki pages that do not already have it (some do, some do not). You can do this on any page other than MediaWiki:Copyright, which needs to remain linking only to the Licensing page as that is a Wikia-specific area/language. ::::If you think that the proposed text could be clearer to further alleviate your concerns, please let me know. We are happy to incorporate your feedback whenever possible. ::::Couple of other things I want to talk about. ::::Admin Rights ::::Now, onto the subject of Archduk3's admin rights. ::::Why were they removed? That is a totally valid question, and one I want to expand upon. They were removed specifically because he violated our Terms of Use. By continuing to alter the copyrights page, he violated the following clause: :::::"You will not ... interfere or attempt to interfere with the proper working of the Site or any activities conducted on the Site;" ::::Archduk continued to alter the copyright pages, in spite of a warning about what would happen if he continued to revert the changes. As it was clear that he was going to continue removing the approved text, which interferes with the proper working of the site by obscuring the full facts surrounding the CC-BY-NC license and the Commercial Use Waiver on Wikia and Memory Alpha, I had to take action to prevent that. The only other action I could have taken would have been to lock the entire MediaWiki mainspace to staff-only access, which places an unfair restriction on the rest of the admin team. ::::it was a necessary action to take, but it doesn't have to be a permanent one. If Archduk is willing to stop reverting the changes to the relevant pages and MediaWiki pages, then I am happy to restore his rights. Ultimately that decision is in his hands. ::::Moving Forward ::::Finally, since the issues here are so complex and since this discussion happens to coincide with a larger discussion tied to the Star Trek 50th Anniversary and CBS' desire to work with Wikia Star Trek communities for the anniversary, including Memory Alpha, we would like to organize an admin visit to our office in San Francisco, in the very near future, to discuss everything face to face with a number of the admins here. Details on that are forthcoming, but I wanted to let you know about it now so it was on your radar. ::::To reiterate, if there are any questions about any of this, please feel free to let me know. I am happy to discuss any and all of this with you. - [[User:Brandon Rhea|'Brandon Rhea']](talk) 00:40, July 21, 2015 (UTC) First of all, great job on figuring out that indenting thing, it really shows your attention to detail. Second, I don't need you to restore my rights tool, the community can do that just fine. Third, I take it "a number of admins" explicitly excludes me this time. What pray tell have I ever done that would result in me not being invited back? I do think sweating the pot there is a good idea on your part, even though we can just cut you out altogether and go straight to CBS, for hosting and whatever else they are interested in. We would certainly have less ads and wikia bullshit cluttering and slowing down each page that way. Also, the only person here "obscuring the full facts surrounding the CC-BY-NC license and the Commercial Use Waiver on Wikia and Memory Alpha" is you, since MA never explicitly agreed to the CUW, there are tens of thousands of users who haven't even implicitly agreed to it, as well as users here who have explicitly disagreed with it, and in fact, with your ability to even add the CUW in the first place, since no one here even knew about it when it was added. That suggests you didn't do the legally required job of notifying us of that change at the time, since, after all, wikia has labeled most of us here as "powerusers", which implies we wouldn't have just missed it. Most importantly though, that language won't work as is, but this will: :"Memory Alpha is intended for personal and non-profit use only. Content posted on Memory Alpha is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial license. As Memory Alpha is a community on Wikia, content is also covered by the terms and conditions of the Wikia Licensing policy, including the Commercial Use Waiver (see: "Wikias Using the CC-BY-NC License" in the aforementioned policy). For the purposes of Memory Alpha, the Commercial Use Waiver only applies to advertisements outside of the content space, and no other purpose." The MA "exception" also has to be added directly to the CUW in the TOU, otherwise it's just words on the wind. After all, that is the only legally enforceable agreement between us, if we agree to this at all, which for the record, the majority of the top five editors here have explicitly not. This is the only language that allows MA to still be hosted by wikia, and it's nice to know that if we want you to engage in a civil discussion all we have to do is have an admin make "a kamikaze run at Wikia". - 01:22, July 21, 2015 (UTC) ::::I'll discuss the proposed change with our General Counsel. As to whether or not you attend, this is in the initial stages of discussion so we don't have any names one way or another. Mentioning the visit tonight was just to put it on the table. Attendees will likely be a big topic of discussion tomorrow. However, what I said should not be taken to explicitly exclude you. You are clearly a key part of this discussion. We will have more information about the details of the admin visit soon. - [[User:Brandon Rhea|'Brandon Rhea']](talk) 01:43, July 21, 2015 (UTC) I would like to point this out to everyone now before anyone agrees with it, either implicitly or explicitly. This wording means we can pretty much never change hosts and force wikia to remove the content here. This was one of the things that changes by having the CUW mentioned in our copyright policy. The community has repeatably not shown much interest in this in the past, and even though the reasoning for staying would seem to have disappeared like our domain, but here we are. I'm not pushing for it since it seems only a minority seem to care about that. I know people generally would like to see an amicable solution with wikia rather than fight a protracted legal battle, even if we would be better off doing the latter. Wikia is a company though, which can be bought and sold, and MA is not their primary focus now, and is unlikely to be anytime in the future. Also, I am not a lawyer, and while I have been "talking" with some, I know for a fact the wording I've purposed doesn't have the legal language necessary to cover ourselves completely. I would stress everyone to think about this seriously before responding, and please do respond. - 02:11, July 21, 2015 (UTC) :::::If we have the option of being hosted by CBS instead of becoming trapped by wikia, I'd opt for doing that. I was under the impression, however, (since this is what wikia told me at the time wanted to move The X-Files Wiki so that he could host it) that the content of a wikia-hosted site always stays with wikia forever and that not even wikia can take it offline. If this is true and any attempt we made to "move" a site to a different host was actually just a copy, I reckon MA would be best to stay with wikia. --Defiant (talk) 12:10, July 21, 2015 (UTC) That is their policy, and it works for SA wikis, especially SA wikis that started here, but MA is NC and wasn't originally hosted at wikia. It gets more complicated after that, but the short answer is they would have a very hard time justifying keeping a copy of MA after the community decided to leave, and they most definitely can delete wikis if they wanted, or in our case, had to. Explicitly agreeing to the CUW, as it is worded even with the "exception" for MA, significantly weakens our position in that argument. Wikia will never agree to language that lets us retain that "out" though, because it will be them agreeing that we not only have it, but that a major reason for the CUW in the first place was to prevent NC wikis from being able to leave. - 14:10, July 21, 2015 (UTC) ::::::I would support a move to another host if it meant we have more control over the content and policies. It's clear that by removing Archduk3 as admin, they are not afraid to force their ideals on the rest of us if we don't simply lie down and accept them. | TrekFan Open a channel 18:56, July 21, 2015 (UTC) ::::Hey. Follow up from yesterday's comments. I would like to propose (and our CEO and General Counsel have agreed with this) we table the discussion about the exact wording until the admin visit (which you are invited to, Archduk). That way, admins can speak directly with our General Counsel (rather than through me, as a middleman), and hammer out the exact wording/details. I have posted a separate thread (so as to keep this one focused on the topic at hand) here. - [[User:Brandon Rhea|'Brandon Rhea']](talk) 22:36, July 21, 2015 (UTC) :::::::::I still don't get the reason for the histrionics. Archduk3 abused his admin powers and was removed for it. This rant of a thread is something he posted because of it. I don't like either fact. This thread is rather irritating to read for multiple reasons. bottom line is that wikia is a business and has to make money somehow other wise they will not be able to host anything.--Marhawkman (talk) 00:07, July 22, 2015 (UTC) :::::::::As the only remaining active admin of Thundarr wiki I'm curious if this will affect us over there at all. I'm guessing no since we don't have any special rules. But a bit of clarification would be nice.--Marhawkman (talk) 00:07, July 22, 2015 (UTC) ::::Good question. Nope, it won't affect the Thundarr the Barbarian Wiki. That's a CC-BY-SA community so none of the legal concerns raised here apply. - [[User:Brandon Rhea|'Brandon Rhea']](talk) 00:28, July 22, 2015 (UTC) :::::::::Thank you for verifying that.--Marhawkman (talk) 21:41, July 22, 2015 (UTC)